Yeah yeah,Spore‘s release date has finally been announced and people are really excited that it turned out not to be vaporware. In a handful of months we’ll be happily building a civilization/war machine to decimate whole planets, or peacefully cohabitating if that’s your bag. But god damn it I want to build weird aliens and I want to build them now! A huge part of the fun ofSporewill be the mad science and creativity that goes into creature creation, and the announcement of a release date only serves to remind me that I can’t do that now.

Thankfully, EA understands our torment, and following in the footsteps of Maxis’The Sims 2,has announced their plan to release a character creation only version ofSporeprior to the full game’s September release.  EA has yet to reveal a release date for this sweet sample ofSporeambrosia, or whether it will be released as a free download or sold as an individual game.  Hopefully they have the good sense to release this version as a free download (or as a giveaway for pre-order), but even if they don’t it’s highly unlikely the creature creation edition ofSporewill just sit around on store shelves.

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Complain about corporate greed and profiteering all you like, considering the torturous wait we’ve had to endure I’d gladly pay a nominal price for the character creation version ofSpore, and I suspect many of my alien-hungry brethren would too.

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